Why I avoid Gigabyte

[stevo1210]

Re: Why I avoid Gigabyte

Speaking of dual BIOS, I just purchased the Gigabyte K8NNXP and that has a dual BIOS system as well. It has two physical bios chips, just like my Gigabyte 8PE667 Ultra.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Why I avoid Gigabyte

I agree with you on that one. Intel made boards run practically forever. I've never had one dead before. I even have an Intel SE440BX-2 Motherboard from 1997 still running well until today.... and that's powering an internet firewall.

I have 3 SR440BX boards I pulled out of W98 machines that were getting scrapped 3-4 years ago. They still work fine. Just never had a use for them.

[willawake]

Re: Why I avoid Gigabyte

still satisfied with intel boards but they have shit distribution here. Intel should require shops to stock some boards if they want the procs. asus and gigabyte own the market here. intel still persist in the enthusist market also but no real success, bad reviews. amazing they cannot listen and do what the reviewers tell them.

[bgavin]

Re: Why I avoid Gigabyte

The best Intel boards I have so far are the D875PBZ you recommended to me. They are not the fastest on the block, but they are consistent.

I've been getting a bad taste for Intel boards lately, after seeing those pieces of shit in the Gateway machines. No floppy controller, terrible reliability, slug-like performance, slow bus. And they have the P35 chipset installed. Go figure.

Yes, the Intel board reviews seem to have a very consistent, negative tone. I like the ABit IP35 Pro at the moment, as it has none of the problems associated with the Gigabyte DS3 boards. The only downside to the IP35 is the PSU connector in the top NW corner of the board. This is a real bitch to access if you have a big Zipang cooler in an Antec P182 case.

[370forlife]

Re: Why I avoid Gigabyte

Yes dual bios does actually work. It happened to me last week. The bios had an error and boot was stopped with an error message then the system booted on the second bios. After that experience I reflashed the bios to make sure that I did not run out of bios.

My biostar Tpower N750 only has 1 bios, but before it will run the bios it will check any usb mass storage devices plugged in for its specific bios. Right now, I leave my usb drive in all the time, and I backed up the bios to it using biostar's utility. So if the bios on the mobo goes caput, it will simply read it from the flash drive, and restore the bios. If you want to update the bios, you can either use the biostar utility, or put the update in the same file as the current bios, and reboot, it will update the bios using the flash drive, delete the old bios backup on the flash drive and create a new one.

On another note, it has a AMI bios, and it has lots of features, including a full internet browser in the bios!!

[gdement]

Re: Why I avoid Gigabyte

I am wondering if the single package boards have two bios chips in that package.

It wouldn't need to be that complicated. It's probably just a flash chip with double the normal required capacity. The high address line would be tied low or high depending which BIOS image is selected.

Many flash chips also support write protected sectors. They could be using that feature for the backup image.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Why I avoid Gigabyte

I avoided Gigabyte, because they seem to require a gazillion BIOS updates for them to work properly.

I didn't want to take the chance with a GA-P35DS3, because of possibly being forced to drop in a Prescott for the motherboard to boot because of it not recognizing E2180s.

[Scenic]

Re: Why I avoid Gigabyte

um... the Pentium Dual-Core E21x0 is based on the Core2 series (in fact: its a Core 2 Duo with cut-down Cache.. thats it)...

same thing for the Celeron S4xx series and the Celeron Dual-Core E12xx.

it will even boot if the BIOS doesn't "know" the proc.

happened to me with my Gigabyte P35-DS4.
had to test a Core 2 Duo E8400 (Wolfdale) with it.
the old BIOS i was using at that time didn't recognize it correctly, but it worked fine.